


The Sound of Settling

by Skylark



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Gold & Silver & Crystal | Pokemon Gold Silver Crystal Versions
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Nostalgia, Rivalry, Slap Slap Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He places the keys in her outstretched palms. (A collection of Janine-centric drabbles and flashfics.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> For [Neutralize](http://neutralize.dreamwidth.org/).

He places the keys in her outstretched palms and her hands sag from the weight. _This place is yours now,_ he says.

\--

The gym is cool and familiar, but Janine still feels uneasy.

She lies down in the middle of the floor and stares at the darkened ceiling. As a child, she often fell asleep here and would wake to see her father's shadow standing over her. _Get up,_ he would say. _This is no place to rest._

Now that he's gone, it feels like the only place she can.


	2. Happening and Passing City

Five hundred steps from her room to the leader dais, a path she can tread silently, blindfolded, sliding one foot forward at a time to feel for the invisible walls.

2,037 steps to the Pokemon Center, which she never visits despite its proximity. As a child, her father taught her how to mix potions, bandage bruises, stitch wounds, the rhythmic sound of the mortar and pestle lulling her injured Pokemon to sleep.

4,108 steps to the Poke Mart and the boy she grew up playing with. She watched him leave, jealously, to go on his journey; he returned two years later to watch her, jealously, become a gym leader. These days, Janine sends Linda to the Mart to dimple at the boy as she buys in bulk.

1,201 steps to where the Zoo used to stand, where she played hide-and-seek with her parents in the year before her mother died. It's only two hundred steps from there to the old Safari Zone, where she camped alone for days in the rain and muck until she returned with a venonat, its wriggling Safari Ball cradled in her shaking hands. The Pal Park does the city good, but it isn't the same.

11,004 steps to the gatehouse that marks the edge of the city, and she finds she can walk no further. She stares at the building and remembers how much larger it seemed, once. The guard inside sees her and waves, and she smiles back, but doesn't reach to open the glass door.

Instead, she turns away. The sun is setting, and she has a full day ahead of her tomorrow. She cracks her knuckles and walks back to the gym, tracing the lifetimes hidden in the cobblestone streets.


	3. Tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jay. Prompt: "Arguing about whose daddy is better."

Falkner's voice is hoarse from shouting, but Janine won't back down, her eyes flashing as she looks up to glare at him, her wide gesticulations graceful from years of training, her cheeks flushed, lips parted and pink and—

When he grabs her wrists and kisses her, Janine has no counter-argument for that.


End file.
